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Wired 2016: Preview

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Wired 2016

Disruptive thinkers, makers and doers from around the world will reveal radical ideas at this year's Wired 2016 conference, taking place at London's Tobacco Dock from November 3-4.

The two-day event is set to see more than 50 speakers present revolutionary work in technology, business and design. Space travel, virtual-reality civilisations and creating empathy through tech are among the agenda items. The topics that we're most looking forward to hearing about include:

Human Machines: Speakers are bound to inspire with discussion of the latest advances in artificial intelligence. Head of applied AI at Google DeepMind, Mustafa Suleyman will talk about his current projects, which involve simulating brain-like neural networks in machines, so they can make decisions as a human would.

Virtual Communities: Augmented- and virtual-reality revenue is forecast to hit $120bn by 2020 (Digi-Capital, 2016). American entrepreneur Philip Rosedale is likely to highlight areas of opportunity in this space, given his creation of virtual civilisation Second Life and role as chief executive of High Fidelity – a company developing shared virtual worlds.

Power to the People: We are looking to discover new technologies that subvert existing systems, beyond those outlined in Synthetic Communities (part of our latest Macro Trend, The Currency of Dissent). Jessica Matthews, founder of renewable energy tech company Uncharted Play, will reveal insights on democratising energy access worldwide via motion-based, miniaturised systems that can convert movement from almost anything into a source of power.

Don't miss our report with the full coverage, publishing on November 14.